Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiation imaging system that is applicable to medical image diagnosis apparatuses, non-destructive inspection apparatuses, analyzers that use radiation, and so forth.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there is demand in the field of medicine, for example, for photography with an elongated observation region (hereinafter referred to as “elongated photography”) where the spinal cord, lower body, or entire body of a subject is photographed to comprehend imbalance or abnormalities of the body frame. Particularly, a radiation imaging system which can perform elongated photography by a single-time radiation exposure is more preferable in comparison with a radiation imaging system that performs elongated photography by dividing the observation region into multiple sections and performs radiation exposure multiple times, from the perspective of eliminating bodily movement of the subject and reduced exposure.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-040140 discloses a radiation imaging system where elongated photography can be performed by a single exposure with no image dropout at the seams, by performing photography with an array of multiple radiation imaging apparatuses. In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-040140, a control board of a first radiation imaging apparatus disposed closer to the radiation irradiation side than a second radiation imaging apparatus and a pixel array of the second radiation imaging apparatus are each positioned so that the control board of the first radiation imaging apparatus does not overlap the pixel array of the second radiation imaging apparatus as viewed from the irradiation direction, and the portion where the radiation imaging apparatuses overlap. Image information is obtained from the pixel array of the first radiation imaging apparatus regarding radiation by which the overlapped portion is irradiated. An elongated image with no image dropout at the seams can be obtained by tiling the images from both radiation imaging apparatuses.
However, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-040140 makes no mention of the effects of the enclosure of the radiation imaging apparatuses on the images, and the enclosure of the first radiation imaging apparatus may generate artifacts in images obtained from the second radiation imaging apparatus. One aspect of the present invention provides a technology which is advantageous in suppressing artifacts that may occur in images obtained from the second radiation imaging apparatus due to the enclosure of the first radiation imaging apparatus.